An electronic device can include a biometric sensor to establish a user's identity. A fingerprint imaging system is one example of a biometric sensor. In many cases, the performance of a biometric sensor may be affected by the precision with which biometric data can be detected. Although increased precision may lead to improved security for the electronic device, it may also result in a physical reduction in the size of one or more components of the sensor. For example, a high-precision fingerprint imaging system may require smaller imaging components than low-precision fingerprint imaging systems.
The quality of a signal obtained from physically smaller components is often negatively affected by the components' smaller size. For example, small imaging sensors may detect less image information than large imaging sensors, generating lower-amplitude signals that may be more sensitive to interference. In other cases, small imaging sensors may be more susceptible to signal distortion from environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, pressure, humidity, and so on) than larger imaging sensors.
To account for the lower signal quality that may be associated with smaller components, many biometric sensors may require advanced signal processing, which may undesirably increase the power consumption and/or complexity of an electronic device incorporating the same.